Tactile Snacking

What better way to teach your kids to enjoy different tactile experiences than to finger paint with chocolate pudding? You can tell which one was a little more into the experience than the other! I love these pictures because they show how vastly different these 2 girls' personalities are...

Haylee likes to take her time with new things until she's more sure of herself and only then she will let loose - a little. She also likes to have everything clean; she really couldn't believe I was encouraging her to do this. Also I think she went and washed her hands 5 times during our 20 minute finger painting experience.

Cambree, on the other hand (someone else's other hand) knew immediately the purpose of this experience was to allow her to figure out how much of this gooey sweet stuff she could consume in the shortest amount of time and if, along the way, she happened to make some sort of design on her tray, well that was just an added benefit. She ended up needing a "refill" from the paint pot about as often as Haylee washed her hands!

Chicken Like You've Never Known it Before

This recipe is also from Bon Appetit. It is so different from all the flavors and spices that I am used to but it was delicious! This is mostly due to the smoked paprika that is in it which was the only ingredient I don't normally buy...I learned it is considered a "gourmet spice" but it was worth the extra effort it took to find - please don't cheat yourself and just use regular paprika because you will not get the same flavor.

This dish was also so beautiful that I can imagine myself serving it at a dinner party someday...that is, someday when I start hosting dinner parties.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/ROAST-CHICKEN-BREASTS-WITH-GARBANZO-BEANS-TOMATOES-AND-PAPRIKA-242113

Delicious!

Ok, so everyone knows I like to cook. But here's the thing, I mostly start out with a recipe and try to follow it best I can. I often make tweaks and changes here and there, mostly to scale down, make things more affordable, and satisfy my need to make every meal my own.

I've tried 2 recipes lately that all (including the girls) of us have really enjoyed. This first one is from Bon Appetit and it's a beautiful summer pasta dish. It has goat cheese in it (my new favorite expensive ingredient). Yes, it's a little more pricey, and no, it's not good, old, comfortable cheddar, but it is surprisingly mild and delicious!! I did make a lot of changes on this one though, because I was determined to use what I had on hand. I won't bore you with my changes here so if you are interested, let me know and I will pass them on or feel free to try the recipe as originally written as I plan to do soon considering how much I loved my version. Who knows, maybe the original is even better!

Here's the link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/FARFALLE-WITH-CHICKEN-TOMATOES-CARAMELIZED-ONIONS-AND-GOAT-CHEESE-242501

Enjoy!

Comic Relief

So Haylee has this doll that pees in a mini potty when you feed her water from her bottle. I'm sure you've all heard of these dolls. (C'mon, don't you remember those pink Mattel commercials when you were young? These things have been around for a while.) From day 1, I (Julie) wanted this cute little doll to remain a cute, dry, little doll but someone, and I don't even remember who, showed Haylee how to "feed" her baby. So now she does it all the time. She even takes her in the bath tub on occasion but I never thought it'd be a big deal because if water got in, she'd just pee it out into her little potty, right?

WRONG!!!

This little doll, Haylee named her "Big Baby" has been sitting on her potty for 2 weeks straight, right on the ledge overlooking our dinner table. No pee. We tried adjusting her legs, arms, posture but still no pee. The other day as BJ and I were enjoying a leisurely evening of watching TV, I finally got fed up with it and asked BJ to drain her out by pulling off her legs. To my surprise, I turn from Everyday Italian to see him giving Big Baby mouth to mouth! (I guess he was tired of having all kinds of training and never getting to use it.) Giada forgotten, I fall on the floor laughing. I mean, seriously folks, just try to picture it!

Here's the thing though...it worked! Well, kind of. As he blew air into Big Baby's mouth, water started dripping from a little hole between her legs! Yeah!!! But then it stopped working. Don't worry, he tried reverse CPR too and no pee. Her arms and legs, we learned, are impossible to remove without a machete (anyone have one we can borrow?) and there is still a puddle of water sitting inside her. We'd like to keep Big Baby around since, well, aside from being a cute doll, our whole family has sort of grown a bit closer to her lately. I'm thinking the only way to drain her is to drill holes in her mini behind.

If you or anyone you know has experience with this kind of thing or you think you might have a creative solution to our little problem, please pass it on.

Shade

Today, or maybe it was yesterday either way it doesn't matter, I got really creative and served Haylee chicken nuggets for lunch (don't worry though, they were the fat free, trans fat free, cholesterol free, 100% organic, whole wheat ones...yeah right!) Anyway, they were a bit hot when I gave them to her. A minute later, she had her hands held just over them, nice and still. When I asked her what she was doing, she answered that her "chicken nuggets would cool off faster in the shade, right?"

The Big 1!

A bit late, yes, but I am still going to report on Cambree's first birthday. Mostly with pictures though so don't get too excited about another long narrative from yours truly. :)

We just had my sister Mindy and her family over as they are both of our girls' favorite playmates anyway and it was a fun little party. Presents (unwrapped by everyone but the Birthday Girl), cake (and a cute one at that if I do say so myself), ice cream, lots of slobber and more than one messy face. That pretty much sums it up!

Oh, so about the cake...I was trying to think of something meaningful and the best thing I could come up with was a bee. Why, because Bree (the bee) is so incredibly busy! She works overtime at what she does, that's how busy she is. And another note, the credit for the message on the cake goes to Alvin, not either or us. It was a potential name for our blog back when we first started it, thanks Alvin!

Vacation at the Beach

Marianne and our niece Sami came out to visit us here in NC last week (yeah, visitors!) and the highlight was our 4 day trip to Myrtle Beach. The girls had so much fun getting extra attention (wait, who am I kidding, BJ and I did too!) and relaxing at the beach, well relaxing as much as you can while trying to convince your almost-one-year-old to leave some sand for the shells!

One thing that made this beach trip a little different was the fact that our hotel had a pool and a lazy river and "SC's only swim-up bar!" (I tried to convince BJ to swim up and get a drink with me at the bar but to no avail.) We spent many a conversation trying to convince the girls to come hang out at the beach instead of the pool but they preferred the pools. Lucky for us, the 2 were so close we were able to set up "camp" at each and go back and forth during the day.


This was our first night at the beach and no, she is not sleeping, this shot was mid flip... I think it was around 11pm and she was rolling and flipping and jumping all over her dad, giggling the whole time...


We buried Sami and turned her into a mermaid!


Sami broke her thumb a week or so before they came out but luckily, she had this waterproof vacuum cast cover thing, a bit cumbersome and a pain to get on but it allowed her to play in the water!



Unfortunately, this picture isn't close enough for you to tell how covered her face was in animal cracker slime which acted as an excellent paste for the sand...